


The Things in the Dark

by Blinding_Comet



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Atone and Repay Universe, Complex feelings, Cryptids, Isa is grumpy (Kingdom Hearts), Lea is hopelessly gay (Kingdom Hearts), M/M, Shenanigans, Trans Isa (Kingdom Hearts), alone time, spoopy things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23564452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blinding_Comet/pseuds/Blinding_Comet
Summary: Side-story to Atone and Repay.This time Lea drags Isa out into the woods in search of the supposed sightings of Goat Man. What they end up finding in the forest is not what either of them expected.
Relationships: Isa/Lea (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	The Things in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Atone and Repay](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17820233) by [Blinding_Comet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blinding_Comet/pseuds/Blinding_Comet), [StormDriver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDriver/pseuds/StormDriver). 



> This took a really long time but here it is. Partially a gift for my dear friend @seth-suffers on Tumblr. Special thanks to StormDriver for beta reading this. Enjoy everyone!

Lea had wanted to tell Isa how much he loved him but… Lea had never really been good at the mushy stuff. The way he saw it, Isa was too… proud? Stoic? Ugh, he couldn’t put it into words. The point was, Isa would never admit it first, even if Lea was at least eighty-nine-percent sure the other man loved him. He could see it when his blue-haired friend gazed longingly, always when he was sure the redhead wasn’t paying attention; could… feel it when he realized that Isa had been working against Xehanort. 

Having a heart was weird for him, or rather knowing he had a heart. To be honest, he wondered just how strange it was for Isa. They had tried to air out their problems many times to get over them but things still just didn’t feel _right._ Lea figured if he wanted a chance to confess, he needed to get closer. He and Isa needed to have some time alone.

With Roxas in the Land of Departure and Xion at a boarding school… he thought he was golden… until he had to bring home Dominus. Don’t get him wrong, he loves dogs, and although Isa prefers cats, they got along just fine. It was that the dog was just so _needy_ and in the way. Lea wanted time to bat his eyelashes and look pretty but no, the rambunctious puppy just had to trip him. He had landed on the floor as Isa struggled to contain chuckles, he did ask if Lea was okay, and he was, everything was okay, except for his pride. 

/\

Their apartment kitchen was quiet, as Isa was the only one in it presently. The window above the sink was open as a light breeze blew the beige-curtains softly. The room’s walls were an odd shade of baby blue that almost looked like a light green in the lighting. A square mahogany table held a single cup of coffee that was soon picked up. 

“Lea, no,” the blue-haired man groaned while holding his morning drink, tilting his head back for effect while half-sheering.

“Lea, _yes_ ,” the man in question corrected, stubbornly waving his arms out in front of him.

The other offered no reply, so the Keyblade wielder tried a different approach, “Don’t you want to spend time with me?” he pouted, pulling puppy eyes and turning his lips into a small frown.

“I don’t like the outdoors,” was Isa’s dismissive, bored-sounding-reply. 

“Aww, come on! Don’t you want to see the...” the other whined in a high pitched tone, dropping his voice in a mock deeply, he finished, “Goat Man?”

“You should stop listening to every piece of gossip,” the man flipped his blue hair back dramatically with his free hand.

“You’re no fun…” Lea finally slumped down on the chair in defeat, curling in on himself a little.

“We have seen monsters before...” his friend began seriously before continuing in a lighter toner, “but I promise there is no such thing as a-” he made air quotations while grimacing “- _Goat Man._ ” Smirking, he corrected himself, “Unless we’re talking about Xehanort.”

“Haha,” Lea tried to laugh off his discomfort, “old goat man has been defeated,” he said in a dull manner before perking back up to talk about his information. “BUT this one was seen on a bridge in the woods!” he went on to exclaim, holding his index finger up.

“There is no bridge in the woods,” Isa argued in a controlled tone, finally settling down his coffee.

“We don’t KNOW that,” Lea countered as he was beginning to become frustrated. “Look, just-” pausing to take a deep breath, he continued, “-just come with me, I wanna look in the forest.”

Sighing, as he realized the other wasn’t going to give up, Isa relented; unwillingly. “Once we search the forest and find nothing out of the ordinary, will you give up?” he asked while rolling his eyes.

“Yes!” the red-haired man clamored, excitedly pumping a fist into the air. 

“Fine then, let me finish my coffee,” his opposite signed and sipped his drink slowly while glaring daggers at the grinning man before him.

||

As far as either of them knew, the forest wasn't very big in Twilight Town. They found out just how wrong they were. Sure, there’s an open field at first, just some trees and logs. However, once you veered off into the forest, it was thick and much bigger than it looked. The two quickly trekked through the trees until they could not see the exit. 

Before long, it was dark out, though that didn’t seem to bother either of them. Lea had a flashlight, and Isa carried a lantern. 

“I don’t suppose you’re concerned about becoming lost?” Isa said after they had stopped.

Lea turned half of his body to answer “No,” he summoned his keyblade in the hand that was holding the flashlight and almost dropped both as he struggled to hold them. Once he got a good grip, he pointed the blade to his left, passed Isa and continued, “This thing always points home.”

Placing a hand on his hip, Isa tilted his head and arched an eyebrow, not buying what his friend was saying for a second. “I didn’t know that was a function.”

Lea gave a serious nod, winked and put his index finger to his lips, “It’s a secret.”

“I suppose it’s not any different from you using it in place of a house key,” Isa countered leaning forward and smiling a little. 

The fiery-man scoffed and turned away dramatically, closing his eyes. When he opened them he was staring at a tree branch, it held a dark figure that smiled to snow brilliant white pointed teeth. For half a second Lea was frozen in fear until he willed himself to become unstuck; immediately rushing to grab at Isa’s arm. 

“Do you see that?” he whispered in a trembling voice, his face sheet-white.

Lifting his head and casting his gaze to where his friend was pointing on the tree. 

“Lea, it’s just an owl,” he said as he looked into the large yellow glowing pair of eyes from the animal. 

“That’s NOT just an owl!” the red-haired man stomped his foot. “It has white pointy teeth?! Do you know of owls that have white pointy teeth?! No!”

“Lea, you’re fine. Owls don't have teeth,” his friend calmly and patiently explained. 

The bushes rustled as the entity on the tree branch fell back into them with a thud, earning an “Ow” from the brush. This caused Lea to jump up involuntarily, he climbed on Isas’ back, hooking his legs around the other man's waist. 

Isa’s reaction to this was just to stand there, and look uninterested, while waiting for whatever was in the shrubbery to reveal itself. A couple of seconds with Lea shaking on his back was all it took. The unknown figure was approaching faster now. 

“GOAT MAN?” Lea shrieked, summoning his Keyblade and pointing it menacingly in the direction of the silhouette. A few seconds later, they came into full view.

“Huh?” Pence tilted his head as he stared at Lea, completely unfazed that Lea was shaking while holding his weapon out. He shook his head, chuckling a little before he explained. “No, Hayner made that up so no one would find his stash of illegal firecrackers.”

“What,” Lea said flatly, giving no indication that his words were even meant to be a question.

Nevertheless, the ever-clever-Pence took it as such, “The creek dried up a long time ago, it’s now used for his stash.”

Lea wasn’t buying it for a second. “Then what about the owl,” he insisted, placing quotation marks around the animals' assumed species. 

Pence ruffled his own hair, rubbing his head in the process. “That's a Furby,” his brown eyes gazed down, “we reskinned it as a precaution, it makes sure people don’t come any further.”

Lea's shoulders hung, he stumbled off of Isas back, dismissing his blade at the same time. Isa positioned himself behind his friend, reaching out his arms to guide him down to sit on a log. “Yeah… I’m just gonna… go…” Pence took his leave quickly; by awkwardly walking away, still holding his contraband.

The two men sat on the fallen tree, Isa looked down at Leas dejected form and sighed. He pulled a hand up to lift Leas chin so they were looking at each other in the eyes. His eyes were sad, and Isa gazed intensely in them. Lea lost his balance momentarily and nearly fell face-first into Isa’s chest. He grabbed at it unconsciously as he tried to steady himself. 

“That's new…” Lea mumbled with his hand on the chest of the other. “Did you get another binder?” he asked while lazily looking up, intoxicated on the other man's proximity and touch.

Chuckling lightly at how his friend looked completely out of it, he replied: “I have more than one, you know.”

Lea let out a little breath close to the other's lips that sounded vaguely like, “Oh...” Locking eyes, Isa appeared to be searching for something in his friends’. He was about to open his mouth and move back when Lea flung himself on the man, lips crushing his desperately like they were water and he had been in a desert for days. Isa remained frozen until he melted under his friends' fiery touch. “Lea...” he mumbled under his breath as he was aware of the others hand pushing weight down into him.

“Shhh... let's just enjoy the night,” the red-head insisted softly. “Unless, you don’t want to,” his eyes snapped open and he stilled his movement for a moment: fingers curling in while he let Isa decide if this was okay. His eyes darted wildly for a second as if he was afraid of someone, or something watching. Casting his eyes down, Isa abruptly lifted his head to gently peck Lea on the lips before moving back into their prior position of making out. 

It wasn’t long until Isa let Lea gently push him onto the soft grass and they both tumbled onto it, all while continuing to kiss there. 

Laying on the ground, neither of them knew how long they stayed like that. The moon was at its highest peak now. Showing itself in full view. After a while, Isa slowly sat up. Lea followed him slowly while staring at him questionably.

Isa raised a hand to stop the other from talking before he silently stood up to peer in between nearby trees. One of his hands placed one of the trunks. 

Lea followed him wordlessly, just in time to hear Isa whisper, “What is _that_?” in an awed tone. 

Lea's eyes quickly darted around the area, searching for what Isa thought he must have seen until they found the impossibly tall and curved figure. Blinking, he couldn't believe it, he rubbed his eyes to make sure and stared intensely at the thing before, “WHY IS IT ALL LEGS?!” unseriously spilled out of his mouth in a hasty shout.

Hands came down to clench on Lea's shoulders as the being turned towards them. Lea jumped from the touch and the thing in front of them. Looking back, he saw that Isa was now behind him and wondered when that had happened. The creature's legs were indeed ninety percent of its body, its head came up as a simple oval, and it was sheet-white. It held some kind of light around it as if it was meant to be comforting. Yet, it didn’t have a face. It didn’t have eyes, and that was the only thing Lea remembered thinking before he turned straight into Isa, shoving him roughly, and grabbing his hand pulling the other with him as he fled the scene. 

They didn’t stop running until reaching their apartment door. Lea throws them both in, tumbling to the floor. Isa had fallen with him and silently got up to close the door. From his position on the floor; Lea looked up, wide-eyed, “What was that?” he gasped, heaving as he was out of breath.

“I don’t know,” Isa spoke quietly as he checked the windows with stiff hands before moving onto the other entryways. Stopping only once he was sure everything was secure, he kneeled in front of Lea, his green eyes all but burned into the others, before speaking in a voice like steel “but I don’t think it belongs in this world.”

Lea woke up on Isa's chest as the sunlight was descending. The blue-haired man was simply laying there, he must have carried Lea to their bedroom. They laid there in silence for a little while. 

“This…” Isa started softly, “wasn’t about the Goat Man, was it?”

“No,” Lea matched his tone, looking down he admitted, “It never was about...” he swallowed with difficulty. “The things in the dark.”


End file.
